Thursday night was an adventure, to say the least. We had severe thunderstorm warnings all day that suggested heavy rain, hail, wind gusts up to 70 miles per hour; even tornadoes. We got all of the above. And flash flooding in my town. Hubs had gone to a friend's house before the storm; way out in the boonies. Mom and I ran out to the store to get a few things she wanted. Of course, we heard all sorts of exciting stories about severe weather in the capital, so we ran down the hill to see. Mom insisted that we could get home via the low road, but alas, as I had warned her; it had flooded in front of the local newspaper and that road was closed. We went back and tried the high road. It was also closed. We tried a sneaky back way that normally leads straight to our house. Blockaded. So I hopped out to see if there was any way to get down to the house, where the munchkin and Mom's hubs were waiting for us. By now I was also trying to direct hubs and his friend to the house, as they had lost power due to the storm. I sent Mom back to her sister's and hubs back to his friend's house when I discovered that the water was thigh-high and moving very quickly. I sloshed my way back to the house to find my street a veritable river. The main road was impassable and firefighters were arranging a voluntary evacuation. Not so much fun. In addition, by 12:30am Friday, the basement was flooded and rising fast. I barreled down the stairs and started throwing as much up to my stepdad as I could, and he piled it into the kitchen. Unfortunately, given my condition, I was only able to save about eight boxes worth of their stuff. By 4:00am, the basement was flooded to within a foot of its ceiling. We decided that if the water continued to rise (instead of spreading back out into the yard and the street once it reached the windows) and threatened to flood the first floor, we would evacuate. Fortunately, it didn't. By some inexplicable phenomenon, we never lost power, despite the circuit breaker being submerged for a good chunk of the evening. We didn't lose cable or internet, despite all the damage outside. The only thing we did lose was hot water, but we made do by heating pots of it on the stove, so no real harm there. On top of all this, our little sump pump magically became the little engine that could! By 7:00am Friday, the water in our basement had been more than halved in volume. By 11:00am, we were down to no more than two inches. It did rain some more, and that caused the level to rise a little, but nothing nearly as significant as it had been.
The whole area has suffered damage. Way out in East Podunk where hubs and his friend were, an entire section of road had been washed out and was impassable. Someone's car had been lodged in said washout. It didn't take too long to sort that mess out, but by the time it had been resolved, every road that might bring hubs home had been closed due to flooding. RAWR! Said I. I'm not going to say I wasn't worried that I might go into labor while he was gone. Thankfully, I did not. Despite heaving and hefting and moving and being on my feet as much as I have, Princess Wiggle-Worm is still firmly lodged in my guts.
Today was "muck-out-the-basement-day." What. A. Mess. We found a bunch of stepdad's pictures of his kids, including his late daughter, so my project was to save as many of those photos as I could. There are still more pictures to wash and dry, but thus far I can proudly announce that out of 150+ photos, I have not lost even half a dozen people photos (I'm sorry, but given the sheer volume of work to be done, I am not going out of my way to save a bunch of pictures of landscapes and zoo animals. Pets, fine. Zoo creatures, no.)
That said, I am tired and have very swollen feet and ankles. So I bid everyone good night and sweet dreams.
No comments:
Post a Comment